Radio New Zealand - Te Reo Irirangi o Aotearoa

Flooding continues in China

Updated at 8:14 am on 29 July 2010

Flooding in northeastern China is reported to have stranded 30,000 people in a town and washed 1000 barrels of chemicals into a river.

residents In the town of Kouqian in Jilin province, were trapped when a reservoir and two rivers overflowed following torrential rain.

In Jilin city itself, containers of explosive fluid from a chemical plant were washed into the Songhua river.

The BBC reports China is facing its worst flooding in more than a decade.

Weeks of heavy rain have swollen rivers and caused damage, landslides and bridge collapses across a swathe of the country.

According to state media, 928 people have died because of the weather and another 477 are missing.

Early on Wednesday, the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze river faced its second test of the season, as floods pushed the water in its reservoir to near capacity.

Engineers said the water level rose to 158m at 8am local time (0000 GMT) on Wednesday. The maximum capacity is 175m.

Xinhua news agency said flow rates hit 56,000 cubic meters per second - a new high for the dam, but lower than last week's peak of 70,000 cubic metres per second on the upper levels of the Yangtze.

Communities downstream have been warned to prepare for rising water levels as the dam's huge spill gates release torrents of water.

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